2010s Tibetan work

Amdo ཨ་མདོ་

Dr. Bill Conrad, surrounded by trainee eye doctors in 1990. [William C. Conrad]

The year 2012 sadly saw the retirement of an unsung hero of Christian work among the Tibetans, when Bill Conrad, the grandson of the great pioneer missionaries William and Jessie Christie, retired from his long service as the head of GANSU, INC. (an acronym standing for 'Gaining A New Sight for Unseeing In China').

Conrad, who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1961 and later specialized in ophthalmology, established GANSU, INC. in 1990, and for the next 22 years he and his wife Peggy worked tirelessly among the poorest of people, including Tibetans in Gansu and Qinghai, conducting thousands of cataract surgeries from modified pop-up camper trailers which traveled into the most remote grasslands of the Amdo region.

Often accompanied by foreign doctors who volunteered their time and expertise, GANSU, INC. performed a total of 6,543 successful eye surgeries in western China, with many needy Tibetans benefiting from their labor of love.

Countless stories of changed lives occurred over the years, as Jesus Christ was proclaimed through word and deed to various Tibetan people groups. On one occasion, an elderly nomad woman sought help because she had been going blind for several years, and Conrad's team found that she had cataracts in both eyes. She received treatment, and the next day she came to her post-operative check-up unaided, sporting a huge smile.

Conrad took a photo of the woman's beaming face and showed it to her. He recalled:

"She began to laugh, uncontrollably, with embarrassment at her funny appearance. But then—almost as though a light was turned on as she realized she was seeing that picture with her own eyes—she began to weep, again uncontrollably. There was not a dry eye among any of us, either."[i] 

An Amdo woman regains her sight, and then laughs uncontrollably after seeing a picture of her own 'toothless' appearance. She then began to weep when she realized her eyesight had been restored. [William C. Conrad]

William Christie had first arrived in Tibetan areas of Gansu in 1892, and with his grandson's retirement in 2012, the one family had served the people of Gansu over a span of 120 years. Fittingly, Bill Conrad noted:

"The GANSU, INC. project, which had started as an 'extension' of the Christie mission service from 1892-1924, came to its ending (a full circle) after 22 years of medical service in three provinces of China at exactly the same place (Lintao) that the Christie family ended their service in China 88 years before!"[i]

God's Love for the Heartbroken

Several major natural disasters struck the Amdo region in the first decade of the 21^st century, chief among them being the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which officially killed 106,000 people and injured another 375,000. Although the quake was centered in areas inhabited by the Qiang and Jiarong ethnic groups, a great many Tibetans were also affected by the initial 8.5 quake and its hundreds of aftershocks. As many as 11 million of the 15 million people living in the immediate area were left homeless. Chinese and foreign Christians were quick to respond with practical help for the devastated victims.

Two years later, the 2010 Yushu earthquake in Qinghai Province also provided many opportunities to display the love of Christ, and many Tibetans heard the gospel for the first time. One report said:

"The immediate objective was to help the victims heal from their physical and emotional wounds, and to care for the Buddhist monks, some of whom refused to live in their temples after the quake because they feared the potential devastation from aftershocks. Instead, they asked if they could receive aid from the Christian team. This has led to opportunities to evangelize a number of them."[ii]